


(Oh My God, They Were Coworkers)

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Heaven as a Corporation, Heaven is just Literally a Corporation in Canon, I Have To Specify: This is Not an AU, M/M, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Second Person, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 15:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20342404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: Aziraphale notices Crowley in heaven the same time Crowley notices Aziraphale.Though he won't know that until 6000 years later.





	(Oh My God, They Were Coworkers)

**Author's Note:**

> I just like playing around with them both pining since the dawn of time.

You notice him at company meetings. The big ones. The all-firm ones.

He works in a different department, a floor or two above you or below you (you’re not exactly sure). So different that you’re not entirely sure what his department does, so different that it never intersects with yours except at these big meetings.

He’s not near you, you’re not near him - but he catches your attention anyway. His hair is the color of flame, his eyes a burning gold. He’s quiet around most of his colleagues, seemingly happy to listen to everyone’s conversation around him, keeping the information he learns to himself. You’re a chronic eavesdropper yourself - a vice, if you were allowed them - and find yourself wanting to hear what he’s learned, share what you’ve picked up. Wanting to gossip.

That would be frowned upon at best, you remind yourself. And what’s more that is certainly not the point of these meetings. So you stay back, with your peers, unable to look away but unable to move closer.

He does speak during the meetings. Is one of the first (but not the only) to voice criticism or concern with regards to the firm’s goals and missions and plans. Questions are met with uncomfortable silence until someone is able to either change the subject or make a quip that everyone laughs at. You notice he laughs, too, but his gaze quickly turns downcast, a sour twist to his mouth.

Afterwards, when the meeting has been dismissed but people remain to socialize, you see that he’s talking to some of your coworkers. The other ones who ask questions – the questions that are more like doubts, the questions that are more like _challenges_ – the ones that have been written up before for them.

You want to talk to him – maybe warn him. You don’t. He has no idea who you are, wouldn’t take kindly to the lecture, doesn’t need to know how closely you watch him. [1]

Time passes, in theory. There isn’t really_ time_ yet, but it moves all the same. You hear his name sometimes, in passing. It’s enough that you can look him up when you’re bored – you’re probably not supposed to get bored but you’re going to try and ignore that. You learn what floor he’s on (two above you), and you see the work he’s been commissioned to do for the firm. You find the high-res files and, when you have a moment to yourself, look through them.

You’re speechless. It’s not that you’re surprised that he’s an artist, not necessarily – in hindsight, he looks the part – it’s that what his work has to be some of the most _beautiful_ in all creation. Certainly the most beautiful, the most colorful, that you’ve ever seen. There’s more color than you knew existed, than you’ve ever seen on the stark white walls around you. You want to say that you can see his personality in his creations, that this is more than just following the direction of the firm, and you want to know him more than you did before. 

You contemplate finally talking to him when the next board meeting happens, complimenting him on his work. It’s as good a conversation starter as any.

You never get the chance.

The company-wide message doesn’t go into the details, and the tone strictly forbids probing deeper into the issue. All it says is that a few dozen company employees have been purged of their positions and, in some cases, forcibly removed from the premises. That their actions were against company mission and endangered the good work you were all meant to do – and that all contact with them must cease, effective immediately.

You see his name on the list of the fallen and feel a little betrayed, although you know you have no right to. You also feel guilty, like you could have stopped him somehow, saved him. That is even more ridiculous, you try to tell yourself. What could you, a stranger, have possibly said that would have changed his mind?

When you see him again he has hair closer to rust and retains the snake eyes of his demonic form. When you see him again, he speaks to you for the first time. His words are casual, almost a drawl, as if you two had been longtime friends before this all went down – like a lead balloon, as he so eloquently puts it.

“Yes. It did, rather.”

“Bit of an overreaction if you ask me. First offense and everything.” He glances your way, yellow eyes somehow so different from gold but still mesmerizing. Maybe even more so. “I don’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway.”

You used to be very good at keeping your distance from him, but now – when you actually need to – it’s impossible not to answer him. To keep him talking to you.

“Well, it must _be _bad…” You trail off, remembering a few things. That you never actually introduced yourselves before, that even if you had his name might not be the same now – stripped from him with his position – and that even if it hadn’t, he might have renamed himself. You wait.

“Crawly,” he graciously provides. [2]

Well, that will take some getting used to. “Crawly,” you repeat, and continue.

It’s a short conversation, cut shorter by the first rainstorm on this new creation. Earth. Still in the course of it, he frustrates and entertains you in equal measure. You realize that he will be the only other celestial (or ex-celestial? You’re not sure how to categorize him yet), stationed here and that makes him – no, not a friend, he can’t be a friend, you lost that opportunity when you couldn’t gather the courage to so much as say hello before he fell. An equal, then.

Oh, your superiors wouldn’t like that either, would they? But they’re not here and, judging from the paperwork you signed when you took up this position, they’re not going to be here very often at all.

So you guard him from the rain without a second thought and each laugh he surprises out of you is easier than the last. You don’t feel comfortable per se, but then if you’re honest with yourself (and you try not to be), you’ve never felt quite comfortable and this isn’t any worse than that. What you feel isn’t comfortable but it is… _something_. Something as new and exciting and different as this earth is and these humans are and this new life you’re going to have here. Something you’re going to hold on to, if you can. [3]

* * *

[1] It isn’t until much later that you learn that he would watch you, too.

[2] It isn’t until much later that you realize that he never needed to ask for your name.

[3] It isn’t until much, much later that you discover what that _something_ is, and that he had felt it for just as long.


End file.
